1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method for bonding a work to an adhesive tape for support to support the work as a process performed before carriage of a thin-plate-shaped work such as a semiconductor wafer or a glass substrate and various processes to be performed on the work, and to a work bonding and supporting apparatus using the method.
2. Description of the Related Art
In a process of cutting out semiconductor chips from a semiconductor wafer (hereinbelow, simply called “wafer”) as a representative thin-plate-shaped work, a wafer is supported by being bonded to an adhesive tape for support which is bonded to a ring frame. After that, a dicing process and a chip cutting process are performed on the bonded and supported wafer (refer to Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2005-033119).
The conventional method, however, has the following problems.
In the process of adhering a wafer to an adhesive tape for support, while heating the wafer by a heater assembled in a vacuum table for vacuum-holding a wafer, the wafer is bonded to an adhesive face of an adhesive tape for support while heating the wafer by the heater. In such a manner, the adhesiveness of the adhesive tape for support is enhanced. However, depending on the wafer heating temperature or the kind of the adhesive tape for support, the adhesive tape for support elongates due to heat radiated from the wafer and the vacuum stage. Due to this, the wafer is bonded to and supported by the adhesive tape for support in a state where a wrinkle occurs in the adhesive tape for support, and a problem occurs in following processes.
As means for facilitating mounting of semiconductor chips diced from a wafer onto a board, an adhesive layer is formed on the back side of a semiconductor chip. Specifically, an adhesive layer is formed in advance on the back face of a wafer, the wafer with the adhesive layer is bonded to an adhesive tape for support, and various processes are performed. In such a case, when the wafer with the adhesive layer is bonded to the adhesive tape for support to thereby support the wafer, wafer heating temperature is set to be higher than that in the case of processing a wafer without an adhesive layer. Therefore, the wafer with the adhesive layer is more susceptible to an adverse influence that the adhesive tape for support elongates due to radiation heat.